Introduction

The Philippines was one of the most promising nations at the end of World War II.  It was colonized by the United States from 1898, and at its independence on 1946, had one of the highest standards of living amongst the Asian nations.

On its way, lots of things went wrong , and as I write this on the year 2010,  it now has one of the lowest per capita incomes among the South Asia nations, having been just overtaken by China and Indonesia.  Over 10 million of its people are now overseas in order to find jobs, and earn a decent living, many separated from families.  Somehow or the other, it has persistently underperformed its neighbors. As a student of management,  I present my own interpretation of what happened, and what are the available promises it should focus.

Perspectives define management, and just maybe, some of the things that has persistently been believed, focused and pursued were born out of the wrong assumptions.  Changing perspectives may allow us a better understanding of the remaining strategies that could be more effective.

I am not an economist, but I understand companies.  Recently, there has been a move that managing countries is akin to managing companies, and the leader may also well analyze it as a CEO would to a company. Michael Porter, world’s leading authority on business strategy and competitive advantage, has extended his analysis to encompass competitive advantage among nations, and is now an adviser to presidents and head of state. Let me try to do same.

Back to Square 1

Back 2 Square 1 means just like zero based budgetting. You start at the beginning of your assumptions.  Nothing is sacred, and everything is rethought, restructured and reconcluded. You might have thought that your base conclusions are already correct, after being there for so many years.  Maybe not.

A lot of things have happened the last 20 years.  However, the same analysis and conclusions I heard in college are still being said.  Maybe it does not apply anymore.

Technology has progressed.  Norms have changed. As they say, welcome to the new new thing.

There is one thing in my experience that makes me qualified to do this  — I love mystery and magic. Why does it matter? Here goes…

Nothing is sacred and appears as it looks

I grew up devouring books of mysteries and whodunits.  In these books, personified by Sherlock Holmes and the books of Agatha Christie, the detective aces the police through superior reasoning and powers of observation.

There is something appealing in them because Sherlock Holmes is acknowledged as the world’s greatest detective  and Agatha Christie is the box office queen writer of all time, having sold hundreds of millions of book.

The plot usually starts with a murder or robbery, and though the police is privy to the same crime scene, talks to the same people and gathers the same information as our hero, invariably it’s the hero who sees through the plot and exposes the culprit.  Seemingly unimportant facts become leading clues, and obvious truths become detractors as the hero explains the fact, and just like magic, solves the puzzle. The reader then closes the book with the feeling how they were unable to see the obvious answers before when it was simply staring them on the face.

In magic, it is the same.  You are awed, and you later found out how they do it, and the way to do both is obviously to make something appear like something else.

After reading enough mystery books, and magic tricks, you gain a healthy skepticism on anything.

In this arena, it is important to do as our hero does – nothing is sacred, no fact or observation is too trivial, and  everybody can be the culprit.  The detective has to keep his mind open to all possibilities unless the facts shout out loud in saying otherwise.

I do not pretend to be as good as my heroes.  I have in fact, never served government, nor pretend that the answers I have given are absolutely correct.  I only seek to present alternative ways to view the platitudes that we are being handed every day.

Sherlock Holmes made his name by showing how the obvious murderer that everybody believes to be so is really innocent.  I take delight in showing you why obvious conclusions are really erroneous, though at the end, this is not a work of fiction, nor a movie.  Thus, while I present possibilities, I do not write the ending, and therefore, it is really upto you the reader to draw your own conclusions.

I am not saying the obvious answers are wrong.  I only say that other answers do also sound right.

What can sound and look right at the start could be all wrong — and if you can sense it, then your interpretation of what happens totally changes.

Revisiting Age Old Beliefs

Let us try to examine some old truths that we grew up with.  If you are a fan of motivational books, the seemingly obvious truth that many of these books write about should not be new — that  Nothing is Impossible, and therefore you should dare to dream big.  And the only way to turn your dreams to reality is to never quit, because winners don’t quit, and quitters don’t win.  And they would proceed with inspiring stories of Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft), and Larry Ellison ( founder of Oracle), who are now two of the ten richest people in the world, in spite of both of them being college drop-outs.

We accept it hook line and sinker, and even rewards the author with our patronage.  Many of these authors have become multimillionaires spewing these feel good mantras.

When I say we should rethink, it is quite obvious.  You can’t go around REALLY believing nothing is impossible, because any of us can cite dozens of things that are really NOT possible.

For sure, the authors can cite numerous examples of people who succeeded because they continued even when the odds are against them, but if you think about it, there are even more examples of people who failed because they keep trying to do the impossible.  Moreover, there are also many stories of people who QUIT, change their direction and then succeeded.

So the more obvious truth sees us in the eye – Winners are people who know when to quit, change directions and they win because they pursue objectives and dreams that statistically speaking have more chances of success.

It is the same conclusion when you say that even drop outs can make it.  However, if you really sit down, and look at the list of successful CEOs of the top 1000 corporations of any country in the world, the obvious answers are there.  While there are exceptions, and they are few, most of the top business people really are degree holders and many of them masters degree holders.  So while we hold it inspiring that even a dropout can make it, you should have formed the conclusion that getting the right degree from the right school and learning the ropes properly immediately increases your chances at least tenfold.

It is this kind of healthy skepticism, and paranoia that we reanalyze Philippines Inc.,